Using WordPerfect 4.1 (WP) for the ST is like driving a Ferrari through
rush-hour traffic. The potential for phenomenal performance is there, but
unfortunately, WP seems to spend most of its time stalled at the side of
the road, rather than leading the pack.

WP brings to the ST features and functionality light years beyond its
competitors. The program has so many features that you may not get to many
of them until long after you've brought it home. Along with this wealth,
however, comes a proportionate level of effort required to master WP. The
learning curve isn't steep, but it is long.

WORDPERFECT FFATURESWordPerfect's list of features is impressive. In up to four simultaneous
document windows, it offers complete line and page format control, including
page centering, binding width print allowance, newspaper and parallel columns,
headers, footers, footnotes, endnotes, automatic hyphenation, Roman or
Arabic page and paragraph numbering, widow and orphan control, block protection,
conditional end of page, redline, strikeouts and outlining. If that's not
enough, WP adds comprehensive macros, online help, a spell-checker, thesaurus,
flexible merge (and mail merge), word count, table of contents and index
generation, multiple levels of Undo, definable Control and Alternate keys,
math functions, file search and display, automatic timed backups and search
and replace on any character, including carriage returns. Virtually everything
is user definable, from the cursor to the underline style. The power in
this program is staggering, even intimidating.

With all this power, the question is: are you ready for WordPerfect?
More important, given the current state of its development, is WordPerfect
ready for you? Perhaps the rest of this article will help you decide.

KEYBOARD INTENSIVEWP is keyboard intensive, reflecting its non-GEM roots. Each function
key pressed alone or with the Shift, Control or Alt keys performs a different
task. You can select every WP feature from the keyboard, although the commands
are often confusing and rarely mnemonic. Some commands are mouse-selectable
in the pull-down menus while others pop up in dialog boxes. Many selections
offer still more choices and subsequent dialog boxes. It may take half-a-dozen
keystrokes or mouse clicks to accomplish a single task.

WordPerfect Corporation has done its best to rescue the user drowning
in choices. The on-line help is excellent and the program comes with a
keyboard template, key stickers, a quick reference card and a 600-page
manual. If you're a new WP user, be sure to keep all the documentation
handy. You'll need it.

At first glance, WP appears to be a GEM-based word processor. This impression
is only partially correct. In many instances, WP parallels the IBM PC version
and many of its routines circumvent GEM with mixed success. For example,
pressing the F5 key brings up a unique List Files menu with a variety of
disk functions. Then the current directory is read, sorted alphabetically
and displayed complete with names, sizes and dates-far superior to GEM's
name-only output. You can then choose a file and function by typing in
the filename or by using the mouse or the cursor and Return keys. You can't
simply do a GEM double-click on a filename to load it. It's an annoyance
at times, but it was necessary to allow multiple file selection. If you
already know the filename and path, you can simply press the Shift and
the F10 key to load a file and avoid this menu completely.

The List Files Menu is typical of WP: a good utility with useful options
(including text in, disk file search, delete and rename) that requires
too many keystrokes and too much time to accomplish its task. When you
move to WP (from, say, Word Writer ST) you first give up speed and simplicity;
this is the price of WP's power.

WHAT YOU SEE...WP is partially WYSIWYG: boldface, underlining and italics are displayed
and text appears on the screen where it will on paper. But headers, footers
and foot- and endnotes are hidden until print time, when they appear where
you hope they should. You can edit them in their own windows, but not preview
them in the document- to me, a serious failing.

Footnote and endnote references are identified in the text by a number
the same size and color of the body of the text. There's no way to distinguish
these numbers from other text (italics, bold and underline don't affect
them). At print time, the numbers are superscripted (if that's what you
chose), but not in the screen display. Also, long footnotes cause unpredictable
and unwanted page breaks or can even cause the computer to crash.

Because of WP's flexibility, embedded control codes can multiply like
rabbits. They are, therefore, invisible in the document window. If you
select Reveal Codes by pressing the Alt and F3 keys, the text, formatting
and printer commands appear in a separate window below the main document
window. You can delete the commands there, but you can only insert them
in the main window. Since the mouse is turned off when you reveal codes,
you move with the cursor keys. The code window scrolls annoyingly with
every movement and often codes scroll up out of sight; you cannot resize
the code window.

PORTING FILES AND SETTING MACROSYou can port text files-not macros-directly from IBM WP to your ST,
but they must be in the WP 4.1 format. ST WP has serious trouble digesting
files created in the 4.2 version.

Macros are a major WP feature you can use to customize your own copy.
Essentially, a macro is a collection of keystrokes- either commands or
text. After you name a macro, you type and press keys in the order you
wish everything performed and save it to disk. When you invoke that macro,
keystrokes are repeated exactly as entered - provided they are stored in
the current directory.

Unfortunately, WP macros on the ST don't always work properly. For example,
I created a macro to open a window, sized it to the top half of the screen,
loaded a file from disk, opened a second window, sized it to the bottom
half, loaded a second file and inserted some text. In IBM version 4.2 this
is simple stuff. In ST 4.1, window number one opened, sized itself correctly
and loaded the file. Number two opened, but remained at full size. It refused
to load the next file and forgot the text.

Sometimes a redefined macro won't respond-although saved, only the original
definition works. Other times, working macros seem to get forgotten and
stop working after performing flawlessly earlier in a document.

IBM vs. ST

Since the release of WordPerfect 1.0 for the IBM PC/MSDOS market in 1984.
WP has cornered 40% of the PC word-processing market. It is currently at
version 4.2, but version 5.0 was announced last fall for release about
the time you read this. Version 5.0 is to have full font control and integrated
graphics-a big step towards desktop publishing. An ST 5.0 could come out
a year after that.

The ST and Amiga versions are based on the IBM Version 4.1. IBM Version
4.2, released in late 1986, has enhancements aimed at the legal market,
including a table of authorities, an index concordance (for phrases), document
summary; line numbering and sorting. These are not. however, the sum of
differences between 4.1 and 4.2:

In 4.2 up to 24 columns per page are available; on the ST, only 5.

A functional line draw in 4.2 becomes a weak border draw on the ST, the
fault of Ataris lack of suitable figures in the character set.

4.2 lets you drop into DOS and perform command functions. On the ST, there's
no such feature (although GEM does allow you to use desk accessories that
will substitute). Again, this is the ST'S failing- it has no inherent command
line processor below GEM.

There's no type-through feature in 4.1-a feature that allows you to print
what you type directly; an insignificant loss.

4.2 has a print preview in which headers, footers, footnotes and endnotes
appear. With the ST version, you can't see them in place until you print
them out.

4.2 is supported by external packages which enhance the program with a
macro editor, notebook, calculator and file manager. ST 4.1 has none of
these.

On the plus side, the ST version allows up to 4 simultaneous windows, compared
to 2 in 4.2. The ST manual has a much better layout and is more coherent
than the 4.2's. ST 4.1 supports italics; bold, underline and italics are
displayed properly; although sub-, super-script and varied font are not
(there is no GDOS support).

THE SPELL CHECKER AND THESAURUSWith WP's large 115,000-word spell checker you can skip words, add
them to its dictionary and perform phonetic lookup. When it finds a misspelling,
it attempts to make an intelligent guess at what you mean, but sometimes
it generates bizarre suggestions, eg., "thur" as a replacement for "thru."
I found the spell checker consistently hung on common words ("dictionary,"
"characters," etc.) in large files. Word count on the latest revision (January
29th) is erratic, on some WP copies it works, while on others it doesn't.
Finally, you can't add words with numbers in them (eg., "2nd") to the dictionary.

The thesaurus is another mixed blessing. It offers both synonyms and
antonyms and the ability to replace a word in text with one of the alternate
words it lists. However, you cannot add to the definitions or search on
capitalized or uppercase words (it can find "easy" but not "Easy" or "EASY").

FILE FORMATS AND PRINTER DRIVERSWP files are in a non-ASCII format, but you can save files in ASCII
or print them to disk. CONVERT.PRG, provided with WP, can translate a file
from 1ST Word or Word Writer to WP format, but not the other way around.
The January 8th revision also offered conversion from ST Writer, but it
was buggy and was deleted from the January 29th revision.

Although many are only partially supported, 259 predefined printer drivers
are provided. Six printer definitions can be chosen at one time for the
system. You can also create or edit printer drivers using the included
utility program and your printer manual.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MOREInstallation of WP is not very clear; nowhere are you told what files
should be installed with what programs or given suggestions for optimum
use of disks. You may have to make several attempts before you get a working
system configured to your liking.

WPSTART.PRG lets you define the system paths, directory location and
a range of default variables including the directory; justification, hyphenation,
tabs, line and page sizes. When I defined system and virtual paths as C:,
WP blithely ignored my setup and used C:\WP instead, but produced error
messages to compensate. With everything set to C:\WP, I had no problems.
(Editor's note: WPSTART.PRG also has the annoying habit of locking up
for no apparent reason, and the January 29th version is no better.)

I highly recommend a hard disk for using WP. With two double-sided drives,
the program, macros and configured printer files should be on the disk
in drive A. The spell dictionaries and thesaurus should be on one disk
and inserted into drive B when needed. Trying to use WP on a single-disk
drive system is almost impossible.

WP uses the disk as virtual memory: files too large to fit into memory
are stored in portions on the disk (areas above and below the cursor, in
separate files). This permits you to create and edit very large files,
but you must have disk space available to handle them. Swapping large files
between disks and memory is time consuming, even with a hard disk. Moreover,
WP creates a variety of disk files for various purposes, from blocks to
deleted text. These can eat up free disk space at an alarming rate.

FROM FIRST WORD TO LAST WORD?For almost every WordPerfect feature there is some drawback, mostly
because the program is, well, unfinished. On one hand, WordPerfect offers
a wealth of power and features; on the other hand, WordPerfect is a monstrous
program, making inadequate compromises with the operating system and still
plagued with bugs.

I'm tempted to dismiss this version as half-hearted and not worth the
trouble, but WordPerfect Corporation has a good reputation. They have great
customer support and put an enormous amount of time and effort into their
products. I'm convinced that they will continue to improve this program
until it lives up to its name-perfect. Ask your local dealer or other users
to tell you if the latest version is stable. Also, keep in mind that WordPerfect's
$395 suggested retail price tag is quite misleading; a number of computer
dealers are offering it in the low $200s and members of the educational
community (both teachers and students) can purchase it for only $99. (Contact
your local WordPerfect dealer for details.)

But above all, bear with its teething pains. It should get better.

If you'd like to see more articles like this one, circle 157 on the
Reader Service Card.

Ian Chadwick is a free-lance writer and the author of the classic
Atari 8-bit reference book Mapping the Atari.